• 9point6@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    I often assume this kind of thing is part of an effort to filter for idiots

    If you know that’s an invalid IP address, you’re probably less likely to fall for the scam after the scammer has put the setup work in. So if they filter you out before a scammer has to spend any actual effort on you, that means more time they can spend scamming people who might be more likely to fall for it

    That’s why these things often have egregious spelling errors and other seemingly obvious red flags

        • zitrone 🍋@europe.pub
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          18 days ago

          lemme try

          (25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])(\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])){3}
          

          tbh i have seen the stackoverflow solutions so i kinda know what i needed to do

          this is entirely typed out from brain tho

          • toynbee@piefed.social
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            18 days ago

            I’m currently on my phone and I’m not going to try to figure out how to test regex on Graphene. Therefore I can only say: well done!

      • entwine@programming.dev
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        22 days ago

        I remember reading about this many years ago as an explanation for why there were so many banner ads that looked like they were created in MS paint.

    • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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      23 days ago

      It’s possible in general, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on specifically here; not many people read IP addresses in such detail to notice such things at first glance.

      • Cypher@aussie.zone
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        23 days ago

        It’s exactly what is happening, they’re filtering out people who know what an IP address is and can contain so that they get fewer time wasters.

        • communism@lemmy.ml
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          23 days ago

          The point schnurrito was making is that even if you know what an IP address is and what are valid or invalid IP addresses, a lot of people won’t read the IP address. They’ll just see numbers and skim over them. Even if you’re keeping eyes peeled for scams, most people don’t have their IP address memorised off the top of their heads so they wouldn’t be looking to check if the IP address looks right or not.

          • Cypher@aussie.zone
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            23 days ago

            And the point I’m making is that they’re doing it to filter out people who know and pay attention. Real simple stuff.

            • communism@lemmy.ml
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              23 days ago

              Then I don’t think that would be the most effective way because most people aren’t paying that much attention, independently of knowledge. What would tip me off to it being a scam would be other parts of the email.

    • Arthur Besse@lemmy.ml
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      23 days ago

      It’s good to see someone in this thread who knows what an IPv5 address looks like:

      IPv5 addresses consist of four hextets a 16bit each.  For the visual
      representation, those grouping are used.  The hextets might be
      written in decimal, separated by dot '.' characters, or as
      hexadecimal numbers, separated by colon ':'.
      

      It’s long past time to start replacing our IPv4.1 deployments!

  • thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works
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    23 days ago

    In addition to what others have already posted, I suspect that this might be an attempt to evade spam/phishing filters that are looking for an IP address with a specific regular expression. Having a fake IP address that doesn’t match the traditional ^((25\[0-5]|(2\[0-4]|1\d|\[1-9]|)\d)\\.?\b){4}$ format might let this message slip through.

    • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
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      22 days ago

      And it hooks tech illiterate people, avoiding people who know something’s wrong. The perfect target.

  • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    22 days ago

    Took me a second to figure out what was wrong with the email… I choked on a laugh when I saw the IP

    What a bizarre, narrow window of knowledge that person must have

    • ThetaDecay@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Alternatively, the scammer is saving themselves some time; more educated, well-versed people will see the ip and not bother calling in. Less savvy people who don’t know the IP address is bogus are likely easier to scam if they call the phone number or reply to the mail.

      • definitemaybe@lemmy.ca
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        21 days ago

        This is exactly right, I’m pretty sure. Scam emails are poorly written and have tells for anyone paying attention on purpose. It’s a feature, not an error.

        Scammers don’t want to waste time on someone who will never believe that the government takes Walmart gift cards.

    • new_world_odor@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      That’s exactly the reaction they want. That aspect of the scam helps filter out people who might be smart enough to properly retaliate if they were to get scammed out of 20k or whatever.

  • Zozano@aussie.zone
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    23 days ago

    For the uninitiated, the joke is:

    spoiler

    Each number should has a maximum value of 255.

    • imjustmsk@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      The fact that I have a test in school today, and this is probable questiom in it, and this post reminded me of it,  thanks I guess?

      EDIT: wait, so each number should be maximum of 255? Why did I think it was just the last numbe :|

      anyway thanks again for the unsolicited coincidental heads up

      • REDACTED@infosec.pub
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        22 days ago

        I’m still angry even 15 years later after a teacher lowered my grade just because I checked “USB” as capable technologies for video transmission. There are literally USB monitors.

        Granted, back then it really wasn’t popular and bandwidth was shit, but it was capable of it.

        • scutiger@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          USB to VGA dongles were definitely a thing over 15 years ago. USB 2.0 could manage it fineish. Maybe not at high resolutions and refresh rates, but it could handle a monitor just fine.

  • gergo@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    no shit they don’t recognize that IP :-D but hey, they also single handedly solved the IP4 address space crisis!

  • python@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    Ok I admit I didn’t get it at first because I expected the joke to be that the IP is 127.0.0.1 and didn’t look closer at the digits

    • ∃∀λ@programming.dev
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      22 days ago

      Neither 867:5309:: nor 867::5309 appears to be allocated. Do IPv6 blocks work like car license plates where you can pay more to get a vanity plate of your choice or do you just get what you get?